5 Ways Your Self Leadership Will Make You a Better Leader

The Importance of Leading Yourself to Achieve What You Want

Having ways to develop your self leadership will make you a better leader and enhance the impact you can make.

We’re all leaders. We don’t need a leadership title to be a leader. The things we do and the way we behave makes a difference to those we interact with regularly.

How we lead ourselves will influence how we lead others. If we want to be a better leader, we have to give more attention to our self leadership.

What is Self Leadership?

Self leadership is our ability to be who we are and be congruent with our thoughts, actions and behaviours.

It’s knowing our values, standards and intentions to achieve what we want, while remaining true to who we are.

Why Your Self Leadership Will Make You a Better Leader

To have a strong self leadership capabilities, we need to have:

High self-awareness.

Strong self-belief.

Immense self-confidence.

As we develop our self leadership, we’ll gain new awareness, have more self-belief and self-confidence. This will also help us communicate better and influence others in a positive way.

The more we influence others positively, the better leader we’ll become.

When I started my coaching career, one thing I struggled with was being congruent with myself. When coaching clients, I emphasised the importance of overall health and wellness, yet I wasn’t healthy myself.

I didn’t like I was suggesting to clients to take better care of themselves, yet I wasn’t doing it myself. That was an area where I failed in self leadership.

When I gave more focus to my health and wellness, I served my clients better because I was being congruent. I could challenge clients to give more attention to their health and wellness with no guilt.

Therefore, why we cannot lead others effectively if we cannot lead ourselves well first.

5 Ways Your Self Leadership Will Make You a Better Leader

Here are five ways your self leadership will make you a better leader. These are things to focus on to improve your self leadership abilities.

Develop more self-awareness. This can be awareness of our values, intentions, motivations, strengths and weaknesses. Self-awareness is usually the start of any change we want to make. More self-awareness leads to greater clarity, which also means making better decisions.

Accept responsibility when things don’t go as expected. No matter how aware we are, we’ll make mistakes. Rather than blaming others or making excuses, we have to own our actions and results. Part of taking responsibility is committing to doing what’s necessary to achieve the outcomes we want.

Ask for feedback consistently. We don’t always know how we’re doing or how we can improve. This is where having a success or accountability partner is invaluable. Having someone we’re accountable to can lead to receiving honest and blunt feedback. That will help us make adjustments quicker so we can continue progressing towards what we want.

Have clarity of intention. The clearer our intentions, the easier it will be to decide what to do or not do. Before doing anything, we have to ask, “What is my intention?” or “What outcome do I want to achieve?” Our intentions will help clarify what is or isn’t in our best interest.

Focus on possibilities or solutions rather than situations or constraints. Not everything will go as planned, no matter how aware or how clear we are. When things don’t go well, rather than giving that more energy, we have to focus on what we want. When we do, solutions to our challenges will present themselves.

Reflection Questions to Improve Your Self Leadership

Here are questions you can ask yourself as you strive to improve your self leadership.

Where in my life do I think I’m doing well, but if I’m honest, I know I’m not doing as well as I can?

What do I believe about my life and where I am currently?

Where am I heading?

What’s challenging in my life at the moment and how I can respond better?

Who needs more attention, caring and love in my life and how can I give them that?

Where have I let myself and others down recently? What can I do to rectify the situation?

What can I do to improve myself and be a better example to others?

Conclusion

We cannot lead others well unless we lead ourselves well first. If we develop our self leadership, we’ll become a better leader.

If we’re unable to lead ourselves well first, it’s highly likely we won’t be the leader we can be. It’s up to us to focus on doing the right things to develop our self leadership.

Action Step: Reflect and answer the questions listed above. From your responses, focus on the key actions you can take to improve your self leadership.

Question: What are additional ways your self leadership will make you a better leader?